


What if?

by bumblebee_rose



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Tension, and lost moments, bed sharing, what a combo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 16:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15246999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblebee_rose/pseuds/bumblebee_rose
Summary: He told her he felt the same as he swirled the dregs of his coffee in the bottom of his mug. If he could have read his coffee grounds like tea leaves, he would have seen a warning sign.So, they had an arrangementThey were sleeping together, but they weren’tsleeping together.





	What if?

**Author's Note:**

> quick one shot just cause

What if he told her he loved her?

What if he stitched verses in the palm of her hand with golden thread and whispered hymns into her skin like it was the book of Michael. Counted the pearls of her knuckles, and every freckle like the moon’s craters, that dusted the tops of her shoulders.

What if he pressed his fingers into the soft expanse of her thighs and bit down on her collarbone like it was hard toffee. Tasted the milk of her skin spilled over his sheets and got drunk on the dark whiskey of her hair.

What If he measured every beat of her heart up to his, balanced their thoughts in law, and took her to court. Struck a gavel against the intrusions of her testimonies and called for order in his thoughts.

What if he ran his hands over the plains of her stomach, milled wheat with his tongue, and shaped land with his mouth. Studied the geography of her body, the lake-like dip between her hipbones and the mountainous angle of her cheekbones.

What if he whispered I love you’s into the crook of her neck, and the spaces between her fingers. Aimed cupids arrow true and spoke sonnets into the arch of her neck.

In theory he could.

 

Instead, he swallowed his words like fire, felt them burn as they travelled down his throat and settled into the pit of his stomach.

It wasn’t that long ago when their arrangement began. 

 

He had brought her bright yellow acacias one afternoon wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, left them on her doorstep like he was twelve and immature, sixteen and cocky, twenty-eight and tender. 

He had bought them from a street vendor in the square, trading silver and gold for flowering stems, and was told he was a _very good man_ , and that the special woman in his life was _very_ lucky. 

In reality, he’s a bit luckier to have her. _Her_ with all her superstitions and beautiful trauma. _Her_ with hands that could mould the soft clay of his heart and convince him to do almost anything.

 

It really all started with acacias, which made sense since they represented concealed love and every other bullshit truth he had been avoiding.

It really wasn’t a far walk from her apartment down to his. Fourteen steps down or a seven second elevator ride, to thank him for the flowers and settle herself on one of his tall stools. 

It really wasn’t a long time to spend with her in his apartment either; in the end, what was a few more hours between lifelong friends?

It really wasn’t a chore, to chop vegetables with her and sing sweetly in her ear like mockingbird song.

 

None of it was an accident either.

It wasn’t an accident, when he traced the dip in her back with his thumb, as she stirred sauce in a dull pot. 

It wasn’t an accident, when he kneaded her shoulders like dough, worked out all of her knots by the fire, and listened to the small sounds of pleasure that escaped her lips.

It _certainly_ wasn’t an accident, when he pulled her flush to his body and swayed with her to the sound of pattering rain against his windows, placed his hand a bit lower on her back than usual, and touched his lips to the spot behind her ear.

None of it was an _accident,_ but none of it was careful calculation either.

 

They didn’t plan to shatter a plate as he lifted her onto the counter, or to dent the drywall as they crashed through his bedroom door.

They didn’t plan to leave his front door unlocked all night, or to let the overhead light in the kitchen burn out.

They _definitely_ didn’t plan to end up in the situation they were both currently stuck in.

 

_Yet_ , months later, there they both were.

They both agreed it was good, _hell_ , it if _wasn’t,_ it would have been more of an issue, but they also agreed it was a one-time thing. Pent up emotions and stress, and the thrill of competition and winning, had made them act the way they did.

_Yes_ , the gold medal around his neck made him buy her acacias and make her dinner. It made him dig his thumbs into the muscle of her back and tip her chin ever so slightly up to his. Its heavy weight had pushed down on his rib cage a bit too much and triggered something inside him.

 

So _yes_ , they wouldn’t be doing _that_ again, but they also wouldn’t be doing _not_ that.

 

He woke up that morning with a comfortable weight pressing down on him and an arm draped loosely over his chest; hand coming to rest by the side of his jaw. Her eyelashes didn’t flutter, she didn’t mumble, or shift, or change her expression. She just slept.

He watched her for a bit, letting the sunlight turn her hair into sweet caramel before he realized he wasn’t tired at all. He didn’t yawn once, didn’t feel drowsiness, or weight on his eyelids, didn’t want to get in an extra hour of sleep. He was perfectly rested, slept better than he had in months. 

She woke up not ten minutes later, blinking a few times before looking up at him. She didn’t fidget, or sigh, or ask for five more minutes; she was just…. awake.

She told him it was the best she had slept in months over coffee; her socked feet perched on the footrest of his high stools, and her hair in a messy sort of ponytail. She wore one of his sweaters that only came down to the tops of her thighs, leaving the porcelain of her long legs on full display.

He told her he felt the same as he swirled the dregs of his coffee in the bottom of his mug. If he could have read his coffee grounds like tea leaves, he would have seen a warning sign.

So, they had an arrangement

They were sleeping together, but they weren’t _sleeping_ together. 

 

They shared a bed when they wanted to, after all it was _helping_ them, and it was good for their skating. Even B2ten has noticed their sleep charts were… different, _eerily similar_ , they had said, as they peered at statistics and results. Their _quality_ of sleep had improved, they slept _longer, better, more consistently_ , almost as if something had drastically changed for the better. 

They made up some excuse of starting similar bedtime calming rituals and investing in essential oils, which nobody really believed; especially not Marie France who raised her eyebrows at them before turning away, but it worked well enough.

So yeah, it was okay if he pulled her into his side and grazed his fingers over the soft skin under her T shirt or curved his hand over her ass as he let her bedclothes ride up just a bit. She was allowed to intertwine her leg with his and tuck her nose into the crook of his neck. They were just sleeping. Together. And in theory, they did most things together anyways, so really there was nothing wrong with what they were doing.

There really was nothing wrong with it, that was until he fell hopelessly and irreversibly in love with her. 

 

It was supposed to be just helping each other sleep better, friends do that kind of stuff for friends. Right? Unfortunately sleeping beside your beautiful skating partner of eighteen years as her chest rose and fell with yours came with the small side effect of falling in love with her.

 

The night it happened was too rushed. A frenzy of hands and open-mouth kisses on necks and lips. Clothes discarded in various places, throw pillows strewn haphazardly on the floor, and chairs left untucked.

He didn’t get the chance to breathe in the sugary sweet strawberry of her hair or find every shade of green in her emerald-cut eyes. He didn’t bow at the altar of her body like he was at Athena’s temple and burn incense at her feet. He didn’t get to feel the heat of her cheek against his or touch his forehead to hers as he trilled his fingers up her ribs.

He had one shot, and in true Scott Moir fashion, he had blown it. Utterly wasted it.

 

He was positive she saw it as “friends helping out friends”. She never overstepped boundaries, placed a kiss to his temple, or spoke revelations into the sensitive part of his neck, all things he had to keep himself from doing on multiple occasions. 

At around night number twenty when he felt her foot slide down the side of his calf, and every hair on his body stood on end, he knew he had to say something, _anything_ , and he nearly did, preparing a speech in his head as he stood in her doorframe in boxers and a t shirt.

But her words were like honey, syrupy and sticky as she asked him to bed, and her touch was smooth as silk as she ran her hand down his forearm. He had looked down at her doe-eyes and her perfect lips, and the way her shoulders curved in just so and almost said it.

Three words that meant multitudes between insulated walls, and over a queen-sized mattress

Three words that would open doors with skeleton keys that could never be closed again. He had told her he loved her before, but it was always when he could see his words in the cool air, and when the apples of her cheeks were flush from exertion. Always with delicate chiffon hanging by her knees and her chest rising and falling, pressed up against his cheek as he melted into her.

The pink gauze of her dress would bunch up in his hands and his fingerprints would mark her back for days. Everything about them was so tactile.

 

They were touching even when they didn’t know it. Their shoulders would kiss as they walked side by side, and he stepped on the heels of her shoes as he followed her into the rink. Hands always searching, reaching for each other, tripping over themselves to grab at loose jackets or shirt cuffs

He could have said it, and he could have kissed her and he could have braced his hands against the mattress at her sides, but he didn’t.

He could have said it, and he could have painted masterpieces on the small of her back, and he could have been hers, but he wasn’t.

Instead he lays on his back in her apartment with her knee resting over his leg and her thumb settled in the dip of his clavicle. He doesn’t know how the racing of his heart doesn’t wake her up, how each reverberating beat in his chest doesn’t rouse her from her sleep and expose the confessions he whispers only to his cross. She could crack open his sternum and find every desire tucked away under layers of rationalities and fear. Lay him bare in front of her as she examined every want he had ever had.

Canton in 2008 when his fingers felt the dimples in her back through her pale pink leotard and just yesterday when she skated up behind him and brought her lips dangerously close to the angle of his jaw.

 

He should have known, he should have known, he should have known.

He should have known the key to all heaven, would be hidden between her sheets.

 

He lays on his back, soft linen surrounding him, and moonlight draped across their legs. He could tell her, could utter those three simple words, professing until his dying day and cloaking them in starlight. He could trace them onto the back of her hand, tap then out in morse code onto her hip, sound out each syllable like he was at a spelling bee, words just on the tip of his tongue.

She sighs in her sleep and tips her nose into the crook of his neck. No, he wont, not tonight, he decides as a shadow passes over her star scattered face. 

She looked at him strangely that morning, like she had something stuck in her throat, like she expected him to say something as he gazed down at the smooth china of her face. He just looked at her like an idiot, took deep breaths and moved his thumb higher on her waist. Bold move Moir, except he was a coward to three words, and three words only.

 

He could have said it then, but he didn’t.

 

It doesn’t stop him from wondering though, what if he did?


End file.
